It’s that time of year again, when the November elections are on the horizon. Inevitably, we are faced with some difficult decisions. It seems that the pool of candidates with good values gets smaller every year. What is a faithful Catholic, or for that matter any person of good will and right conscience, to do?
Fortunately, we can look to the wisdom of the Church for guidance on how to develop a rightly formed conscience, and to discover the truth about the most fundamental issues and principles that govern our voting decisions.
Participation in Political Life
As Catholic citizens, making good decisions in the voting booth is a serious obligation. Our participation is important, and perhaps now even more so, as we are faced with an increasingly Godless and relativistic culture. The time is upon us to work more vigorously in upholding the dignity of the human person, without which society crumbles.
St. Thomas More, martyr and patron of statesmen and politicians, laid down his life in service of God and Truth. He taught by his life and death that “man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality” (John Paul II, 2001).
As advocates for God and Truth, we too must be willing to be counter-cultural; for indeed it is the Truth that will set us free. Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput, who has written extensively about the role of Catholics in the public square, said, “For Catholics to be leaven in society, we need to offer our culture the whole truth about the dignity of the human person, even when the message is unpopular.”
Rightly Formed Conscience
So how do we know how to make good decisions when voting? The Church’s Magisterium offers us a treasure of teaching to make our growth in and practice of moral virtue easier. Among the many sources are the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) called “The Participation of Catholics in Political Life”, and the U.S. Bishops’ “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” and “Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics”.
The Catechism reminds us that a well-formed conscience is upright and truthful and that the education of our conscience is a life-long task. Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law, or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them. No matter the difficulty of the situation, we are called to seriously seek out what is right and good and discern God’s will. (CCC 1783, 1784, 1786-87)
Today our sensibilities are assaulted by what Pope Benedict XVI often referred to as a “dictatorship of relativism”, where reason and the principles of natural law, once common to all people of good will, have largely disintegrated.
Nonetheless, we must remember that the good of society depends on the family, it’s most basic cell. The family is where life begins, and faith, virtue, and good moral character are fostered and nurtured. Clearly though, the family is under attack, and we must work unceasingly to rebuild it. Yet another reason why our voting decisions matter. Life, marriage, and religious liberty are fundamental in this battle. If we lose these most basic God-given pillars of society, we lose everything.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to cover all of these in detail, let us simply look at the principle that governs all the others: the fundamental right to life.
The Fundamental Right to Life
The 1974 Vatican document, the Declaration on Procured Abortion (n. 11) says it exceptionally well: “The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are more precious, but this one is fundamental – the condition of all the others. Hence it must be protected above all others. It does not belong to society, nor does it belong to public authority in any form to recognize this right for some and not for others… It is not recognition by another that constitutes this right. This right is antecedent to its recognition; it demands recognition and it is strictly unjust to refuse it.”
Thus, when considering the positions and voting records of candidates for office, we must look at how their words and actions view the very dignity of the human person from conception to natural death and the fundamental right to life every person possesses. We must never compromise on intrinsically evil acts such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, or attacks upon the human embryo – all of which directly take innocent human lives. In all probability, if we uphold the right to life which is the foundational principle of Catholic Social Teaching, there’s a good chance that our moral positions on other issues will align with reason and truth as well. “Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation on non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society… democracy succeeds only to the extent that it is based on a correct understanding of the human person.” (Participation of Catholics in Political Life, n. 3)
Questions often arise surrounding the issue of how to make a decision when both candidates support abortion, or in decisions regarding “imperfect” abortion legislation. In Evangelium Vitae (n. 73), Pope John Paul II noted that we have a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” any law that attacks human life. In cases of little distinction however, one might licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done and lessening its negative consequences when there is no other option. Any such decisions necessitate being well-formed and informed, and made in prayer.
In Christifideles Laici (n. 38), Pope John Paul II sums up the guiding principle of conscience this way: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, fínds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”
The Church does not tell us who to vote for, but she does provide us with the path to a properly formed conscience so that we may make good and right decisions. All Catholic citizens would do well to become informed, sincerely seek Truth, and heed the Church’s wisdom.